


An unexpected Valentine's

by justme (silver_spring)



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Valentine's Day, sorry for the lame title
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-24 11:07:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9721331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silver_spring/pseuds/justme
Summary: Brienne is glad that Valentine's is almost over, but then the phone rings..





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WackyGoofball](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WackyGoofball/gifts), [december13](https://archiveofourown.org/users/december13/gifts).



> This is for the JBO Valentine's day ficlet fest. (Looks at clock...yup, still a few hours left)  
> I'd like to gift this ficlet to  
> december13, because she's making me laugh often and she always has a gif ready to express herself ;)  
> and  
> WackyGoofball, because it's high time I gift her something. Wacky is awesome and inspiring and always supportive and a deep, deep well of creativity and did I mention awesome?
> 
> Totally un-betaed and I'm no native speaker.

Valentine's Day. What a boatload of crap. Brienne leaned back against the couch sipping her tea and picked up the remote to click away from the colorful pralines ad that had just played on the tv. A holiday created by candymakers, florists and with all the romantic dinners taking place tonight, the restaurant owners of the world probably had their greedy little fingers somewhere in the money generating machinery as well. And it wasn't even a real holiday; that would've at least meant a day off work. Okay, so maybe she was just a little bit bitter about this day. After all, her last valentine had come in 10th grade from Ron Connington and that had been a prank to begin with that left her once more the laughing stock of Evenfall High and gave her a severe hate of roses. For others, it was perhaps everything the commercials and tv movies made it out to be. The idea of dedicating a whole day to celebrate love was nice, she guessed. And it wasn't like she'd never been in love herself, it just so happened that she'd never been in a relationship on this day, and the blatant displays of coupledom on valentine's day made her feel extra single and unwanted. Like today in the office. There had been at least five deliveries of giant flower bouquets, heart-shaped boxes of chocolates and someone on another floor allegedly even had gotten a singing telegram from their partner. Brienne certainly didn't begrudge anyone their happiness, but all that together with the aww-ing and gushing over what presents might be waiting for them at home or what they'd received..it had been just a lot and felt like the world was once more rubbing the fact under her nose that she was alone and not part of the club. Or standing on the outskirts at least. The sad pattern of her love life seemed to be that she had a tendency to fall for guys that didn't even know she existed in  _that_ way and unrequited love kinda felt like standing on the outside, looking in. And on Valentine's, it felt like the standing outside was taking place in the rain, on a cold night. 

Putting down her tea mug, Brienne shook her head to clear out those depressing thoughts. The day was almost over now, and she was not in the habit of throwing herself pity parties. Her life in general was pretty great. She had a wonderful job, amazing friends and the fact that the man she had given her heart to would never even know she'd done so was no reason to despair. It could be worse. At least they were in each other's life. That was something.

Just as she was contemplating whether to have another mug of tea and check the history channel in case an interesting documentary was on or just call it a day and go to bed already, the phone next to her on the side table rang.

Who would be calling her at 10 pm? Her first thought of course was that something bad had happened, and so she picked up with some trepidation.

"Hello?"

"Wench?" a familiar voice came through the receiver, putting her worries to rest, but still making her heart speed up a notch. Jaime Lannister. Her former short-term nemesis, now friend and the man mentioned in her thoughts earlier. She would've even gone so far and given him best friend status, but that seemed to be such a cliche. Falling in love with your best friend. Besides, he still could be a pain in the ass, like when he insisted on calling her wench.

"For the approximately 100,000th time: My name is Brienne!"

"Yeah, fine, whatever." She could practically hear his eye roll.

"Why are you calling my landline, Jaime?"

"I don't know your cell number by heart. Listen, you need to come to the 14th precinct and bail me out."

"What?!"

Brienne bolted upright, clutching the receiver close. Perhaps the first thought of something bad having happened hadn't been wrong after all.

"I said you need to come to th---"

"I got that part. What in the Gods' name did you get arrested for?"

"Originally? Uh...vandalism. They may have added resisting arrest to that, I don't know, it was somewhat chaotic. Just come and get me."

"Don't you have a lawyer for something like that?"

Seeing as his family was one of the richest in the country, a valid question.

"Yes, and Addam will be all over this, but he's on vacation in Essos with his girlfriend and right now I just want to get out of here. So get those giant feet into a pair of shoes and come down here."

_Giant feet?_ She narrowed her eyes.

"Wait..if you're under arrest, this is your only phone call, right?"

"Yeah. So?"

"Good."

With that, she hung up. Then, Brienne sighed and got up to put on her shoes and grab her wallet.

**

About an hour later, after some paperwork and her handing over 350 dragons, she was sitting on an uncomfortable bench in the 14th precinct, waiting for the very disgruntled and stern looking officer Baratheon to release the 'delinquent' into her custody. He hadn't been very forthcoming about why Jaime had been taken in exactly, only mumbled something about 'respectless smartass' and 'arrogant rich boy'. Which, to be fair, was a first impression Jaime seemed to make on a lot of people, herself included.

They had met about one and a half years ago at a fundraiser her former boss Catelyn Stark had dragged her to and within five minutes of meeting Jaime, Brienne had been convinced that he was a horrible person and never seeing him again would be wonderful. He was loud, obnoxious, with a crude sense of humor and thought it perfectly fine to speak out loud whatever was going through his head at any given time. And that night, a lot of unflattering comments about her had been going through his mind. From her choice of dress over her hairstyle and her freckles to the fact that she was more or less just standing about, not really interacting with a lot of people. Brienne had tried to get away more than once, not wanting to get into a verbal bout at the fundraiser, but he'd kept on popping up next to her all night. Later, after they'd become friends, he'd confessed that he'd only done it because he'd been intrigued by the many hues of red her face could turn into when she blushed and that it had been more entertaining than listening to a neverending string of people trying to suck up to him. And that it all was in jest. Which, granted, didn't really make it all that much better, but by then he'd already been forgiven. Actually, he'd been forgiven by the end of the first night when she'd come back from the powder room and overheard him tearing some corporate bastard a new one after he'd insulted her, probably in the hopes of sharing a laugh and establishing a superficial connection with corporate tycoon Tywin Lannister's son. He'd been deathly calm, hadn't even raised his voice much, and by the time he'd finished talking, the other guy had seemed to be close to actual tears. Because that was Jaime too; fiercely protective of people he deemed worthy of it, and not a fan at all of being cruel for cruelty's sake.

Still, she hadn't expected to see him again after that fundraiser; they came from too different backgrounds. She had been raised on a tiny island, he in a giant mansion. She was pretty much on the lower rungs of the corporate ladder, working hard to get up a few levels, he had been trained to lead from an early age but thrown that all away in order to become a journalist (something that still wasn't talked about much in his family, seeing as it had turned him into the black sheep). She worked for Catelyn Stark and Stark enterprises, he was a Lannister and those two families had a history of a lot of bad business blood between them. So, it was quite a surprise when she'd met him again not two weeks later in her favorite coffee shop. The waiting line had been terribly long, they'd gotten to talk, or well, he'd gotten to chew her ear off and by the time they had made it to the front of the queue, he'd invited Brienne to the preview of an exhibition on medieval weaponry and gotten her phone number out of her, because it was just damn hard to say no to Jaime Lannister when he unleashed the full power of his smile on someone. The rest was, as they say, history. The rocky first meeting aside, they actually got along famously and it wasn't long until he had become one of her best friends. The falling in love with him part had just happened along the way, without Brienne being able to do anything against it. Not that she would ever tell him about that. That would be the fastest way to make things between them incredibly awkward; she'd been down that road before. Being friends was better than nothing and at least, Jaime didn't have a girlfriend or wife to be jealous of.

The sound of a door being opened made her snap out of her thoughts. Officer Baratheon had finally returned, Jaime in front of him, an envelope with his personal belongings clutched to his chest. He seemed okay, judging by the smirk on his face.

"Wenchy!" he grinned upon seeing her.

"No yelling!" Officer Baratheon admonished. Jaime chuckled and simply proceeded to quietly hum the melody of 'born free'.

"Just get this guy out of here before I arrest him again for misconduct." The policeman hissed at Brienne and gave Jaime a not so gentle push in her direction.

"No problem, ser. We're leaving."

Grabbing him by the shirt, she dragged him out of the station before he could repeat his remark of 'police brutality!' loud enough for the officer to hear him.

As soon as they were on the street, Jaime picked her up and swung her around. Brienne gave a very untypical squeak.

"Ah the sweet smell of freedom. Thanks for bailing me out!"

"Uh...sure. What are friends for if not posting bail, right?"

"Right." He said, putting her down again.

"I'm starving. Let's go to Red Keep and wolf down some sliders. I'll pay."

"I thought you said the sliders at Red Keep were disgusting and it wouldn't surprise you to find out they put stray cat meat into them?"

"What can I say? Going to the big house changes a man."

"You were in there less than two hours!"

"So? I'll have you know I was *this* close to getting a new husband named Olyvar!" He exclaimed, holding his thumb and index finger half an inch apart.

"Jaime..."

"I was! One of the downsides of being pretty."

Oh well. She wouldn't know about those, now would she? All Brienne knew were the downsides of being unpretty, which were a lot and all of them sucky.

"And what exactly does that have to do with greasy fast food?"

"I'm only saying I just had a traumatic experience being locked up by the man and I want to forget all about it by indulging in fatty foods. And a milkshake."

"Fine. Let's go to Hot Pie's. That's on the way to your place anyway."

"Nope. It has to be Red Keep. The one near Visenya's hill."

"That's at least a twenty minute drive from here into the opposite direction of where we have to go."

"Come on Brienne. Pretty please?"

He made use of one of the most unfair weapons in the arsenal of any man: The lost puppy look. And of course, there was no way for her to withstand that.

"Fine. But you better not steal my fries."

***

During the drive, Jaime seemed somewhat fidgety and he still wouldn't say much about the exact thing that had led to him being arrested, only that it had been necessary to do what he'd done and that the cops had simply shown up at the wrong time. When they finally got to Red Keep Burgers, Brienne signalled to turn into the drive-in lane.

"No, no, keep going. Park over there." Jaime said, pointing to the right end of the lot.

"What? Suddenly you're too good to eat in my car? Wasn't it you that spilled coffee on the very seat you're sitting in?" Brienne replied, even though she was already pulling over to park where he'd wanted.

"It's a fine car for eating, but I need to show you something."

"Show me what?"

"You'll see. Duh."

They got out of the car and while Brienne went into the direction of the fast food joint's door, Jaime grabbed her hand and pulled her back. For some odd reason, he seemed nervous, not something he was very often.

"This way. The underpass over there."

"Jaime, what is going on? I don't--"

But he was already pulling her along. They went down the steps to the underpass under the urban freeway and into the tunnel. Jaime dragged her behind him for about fifty feet, before stopping.

"Happy Valentine's day, Brienne." he said, still holding on to her hand.

Brienne turned and blinked. Then she blinked again. In front of her, there was a short poem spray-painted onto the wall together with a two entwined hearts and the initials J and B in them.

_Roses are red / Violets are blue / I may suck at painting / But I'm in love with you/ Be mine?_

"W-What is that?" she stuttered. Her blood was rushing in her ears, her heart was working overtime and she could only hope the hand Jaime was still holding on to wasn't as clammy as the other one felt. Could this be true?

"Well, the police calls it vandalism, but obviously they don't know art when they see it. Personally, I'd like to call it desperate measures."

"Desperate?"

Jaime turned to her, a hopeful expression on his face.

"Well, I have been trying to subtly woo you for a while now, but you haven't really picked up on that so I figured it was time for a grander gesture and what better day for that than today."

"You've been... _wooing_ ..me?"

"Totally." he confirmed, gently squeezing her hand.

"But..why?"

"Have you not read the poem? It says  _why_ right there."

"Jaime. You know what I mean. Why me? Look at us. You could have anyone."

He shrugged.

"Maybe, maybe not. And that's unimportant anyway because fact is: I don't want  _anyone_ . I want  _you_ . I thought I had picked up a vibe from you as well; perhaps I'm wrong about that and if I am, I'm sorry to put you in an awkward position, but I don't want to spend the rest of my life wondering  _what if_ ? And I sure as hell don't want you to find some other guy eventually without having told you how I feel first. So? Are you going to answer my question any time soon?"

"Question?"

"The poem, wench. The end of it to be exact."

Brienne looked back to the wall.  _Be mine?_ She smiled. Not that he knew, but actually she had been for a while already.

"Well, you did go to jail for me.." she trailed off, turning back to Jaime and walking up right up to him.

"That's right. And..uh...you don't mind dating someone who's done time, right?" he asked, as his arms wound themselves around her waist, pulling her even closer.

"You did two hours." Brienne laughed.

"Let's make it at least four when we tell the story to the grandkids."

"Grandki--"

But she never got to finish that sentence because his lips were already on hers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Valentine's Day :)


End file.
